The latest spate of violence in Israel and the occupied territories has been the occasion for anguished references to the "cycle of violence," as if it were like the procession of the seasons and no one side can be held responsible. This has never been true – one side is indeed responsible – and this is underscored by the recent behavior of the Israeli government in regard to the kidnapping of those three Israeli boys.

On June 12, at 10:15 p.m., a trio of Israeli teenagers – Gil-Ad Shaer, Naftali
Frenkel, and Eyal Yifrach – who were hitchhiking back to their homes were given
a lift by Marwan Qawasmeh and Amar Abu Aisha. The car radio had Israel’s public
station on, giving the impression that the occupants were Israelis, but the
three boys soon realized their fatal mistake. One of them called 911 and told
the dispatcher "We’ve been kidnapped": in
the recording – kept secret until now – one can hear gunshots in the background,
the cry of someone who has at least been wounded, followed by celebratory singing.

Oddly, the police did not respond to the call until five hours later, when the parents reported them missing.

The authorities immediately issued a gag order on all reporting on the content
of the call, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet lied to
the Israeli and international public by pretending not to know the boys were
almost certainly dead. Even after the kidnappers’ abandoned car was found, splattered
with bloodstains that confirmed the killing, the Israeli authorities continued
to maintain the fiction that the three were being held for some yet-to-be-disclosed
ransom.

The boys, said Netanyahu & Co., had been kidnapped by Hamas in order to
extract more concessions from the Israeli government as in the case of Gilad
Shalit. The Israeli-Jordanian border was closed, supposedly to prevent the transport
of the kidnapped teens. Netanyahu’s wife launched a media campaign on Twitter
modeled on Michelle Obama’s #BringBackOurGirls hashtag: "Bring back our boys!"

And of course there was a military complement to the propaganda campaign: although the Israeli government knew the three boys were almost certainly dead, they initiated what they dubbed "Operation Brother’s Keeper." Thousands of IDF soldiers combed the West Bank, ostensibly searching for the kidnapped boys: 560 Palestinians were arrested, with over 200 still being held, and over 2,000 locations – homes, public buildings, even water wells – were searched. Palestinian homes were ransacked and looted. And, naturally, Gaza – Israel’s punching bag – was mercilessly bombed, in tandem with the killing of six young Palestinians by the IDF.

As Israel Pulse points out, when rumors that the boys’ bodies had been found began to circulate, the Israeli authorities held a press conference at which

"IDF spokesman Brig. Gen. Moti Almoz adopted a reproachful tone and raised hopes even higher. He said, ‘Both the army and the Shin Bet are working on making new evaluations of the situation in the recent hours and are involved in many operations designed to ensure the safe return of these boys. Regarding the rumors that have spread — these rumors have no basis and are not reliable.’ He didn’t even blink an eye when he said this."

One imagines the authorities were equally unblinking when they lied to the parents of one of the boys, who – after being allowed to listen to the 911 call – were told the shots heard were "blanks"! The government then sent family members to a United Nations conference in which the deceived parents tearfully pleaded for their sons’ return.

So why did the Israeli government lie about the "kidnapping"? Look
at the context: the US had recently recognized the Fatah-Hamas unity government
and Tel Aviv had taken the brunt of the blame for the failure of the Israeli-Palestinian
peace talks. It was a no-brainer, as far as the Israelis were concerned: why
not use the murder to exert maximum political leverage on Washington, launch
fresh attacks on the Palestinians, and score a few much-needed propaganda points?

The Israelis not only kept the murder of the three boys secret, they also kept the identities of the accused Palestinians under wraps for two weeks. Why?

Because the two brothers implicated in the murder are members of a clan known to be a "rogue" element in Hamas, having defied the wishes of the Hamas leadership on repeated occasions. Hamas would have no motive for the murder, unless the leadership wanted to sacrifice the real political gains they have made on the West Bank for the "satisfaction" of executing three Israeli teens.

The Israeli deception allowed them a pretext to carry out a military operation that otherwise would’ve been seen for just what it was and is: pure vengeance directed at those who had nothing to do with – and nothing to gain from – the murders.

Alongside the military campaign directed at Hamas – but actually aimed at any
and all Palestinians – the government’s propaganda campaign whipped up the Israeli
people into a frenzied paroxysm of hate. Mobs of Israelis marched through the
streets, beating any Arab in sight. The Israeli far-right went ballistic, calling
for outright genocide against the Palestinians. The Israeli "mainstream,"
for their part, kept up the incitement, with Netanyahu and defense minister
Moshe Ya’alon proposing a new
Israeli settlement on Palestinian territory in "honor" of the
murdered boys.

The death of 16-year-old Abu Khdeir, who was kidnapped by Israeli "extremists" and burned alive, was all too predictable. After weeks of ferocious pronouncements coming from Israeli government officials, whose overwhelming message was the necessity of exacting vengeance, it was almost inevitable that some would get the message and take matters into their own hands.

There is a curious parallelism in the Israeli government’s domestic and foreign
policies: both seem designed to whip up as much turmoil as possible, resulting
in a condition of perpetual war. At home, the government is constantly pushing
the boundaries of morality and international law, seizing Palestinian land,
building "settlements," and routinely brutalizing even those Palestinians
who are citizens of Israel. Abroad, Tel Aviv has kept the pot constantly boiling,
calling for American military action against Iraq, Syria, and Iran and consistently
backing policies that aim at nothing less than the atomization of its Arab neighbors.

In this most recent case, involving conscious deception and the exploitation (and incitement) of murder, the Israeli political class exhibits a malevolence unique among nations. It is a trait that has become more pronounced over the years, earning it enmity on an international scale, inspiring a boycott campaign and isolating its people inside what the writer Max Blumenthal trenchantly characterizes as "a hermetic dystopia."

Israel is, increasingly, an outlaw among nations – which, as far as libertarians are concerned, makes it an outlaw among outlaws. The boycott-and-divest (BDS) campaign, urging people everywhere to treat it as an international pariah, is more than justified by recent events. This is underscored by the Israeli public’s non-reaction to the revelation that the government knew the three boys had been killed and yet used the kidnapping angle to milk the situation for maximum political gain: they no longer care if they’re being lied to, as long as it confirms their hatred of the Palestinians.

The prophetic words of Yeshayahu Leibowitz, the great Israeli teacher and classical liberal, who predicted what would happen to the Jewish state if it kept the occupied territories, have come to pass:

"The Arabs would be the working people and the Jews the administrators, inspectors, officials, and police – mainly secret police. A state ruling a hostile population of 1.5 million to 2 million foreigners would necessarily become a secret-police state, with all that implies for education, free speech and democratic institutions. The corruption characteristic of every colonial regime would also prevail in the State of Israel. The administration would have to suppress the Arab insurgency on the one hand and acquire Arab quislings on the other. There is also good reason to fear that the Israel Defense Force, which has been until now a people’s army, would, as a result of being transformed into an army of occupation, degenerate, and its commanders, who will have become military governors, resemble their colleagues in other nations.”

The entire energies of the Jewish state, instead of looking to the actual needs of its citizens, would be directed at enforcing "this strange system of political domination."

It was strange to Leibowitz, who fled anti-Jewish persecution in Europe and emigrated to Israel to become one of the giants of the founding generation, because it inverted the whole history of the Jewish people, turning them into the spitting image of the pogromists whose terrorism he had fled. Today it is strange no longer, but simply what we have come to expect.

Let us hear no more about "the cycle of violence" in Palestine, as
if both sides are equally responsible for the current conflagration. An honest
recounting of history must show who ignited it – and the calculated incitement
of inter-ethnic violence by Israel’s current "leaders" tells us all
we need to know about who is keeping the fires of hatred burning.

NOTES IN THE MARGIN

You can check out my Twitter feed by going here.
But please note that my tweets are sometimes deliberately provocative, often
made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out loud.

201231755867 Responseshttp%3A%2F%2Foriginal.antiwar.com%2Fjustin%2F2014%2F07%2F08%2Fwho-started-the-cycle-of-violence-in-palestine%2FWho+Started+%27the+Cycle+of+Violence%27+in+Palestine%3F2014-07-09+06%3A00%3A32Justin+Raimondohttp%3A%2F%2Foriginal.antiwar.com%2F%3Fp%3D2012317558 to “Who Started ‘the Cycle of Violence’ in Palestine?”

Yes, the facts as presented do seem to expose the Israeli government as having exploited the kidnapping. But how can you give such short shrift to the kidnapping itself? How can you label anything besides the kidnapping and multiple murders of the Israeli teens as the inciting incident? One shouldn't fail to condemn the very thing that set this ugly chain of events in motion, no matter how much it may have been obscured or exploited by cynical people with political motives.

I hope the beasts who murdered both the Arab teen and the Israeli teens face the same stiff justice. But let's not forget basic chronology or fail to condemn the true instigators.

Is this the beginning of the Final Solution of the Palestinian problem? We all know that what the extremists want is an Arab free Greater Israel. I have seen many, many, comments from Israeli propagandists in comment sections calling for mass expulsion or even genocide against the Palestinians. They also hate Iranians, Syrians and all the rest of their neighbors. They are for peace. They want a piece of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt and of course all of Palestine. They also want control of the water, oil and sky's of the neighborhood. They would prefer that it be done with American blood and treasure.

It was a vicious multiple homicide committed by psychopaths. We have them here everyday in the U.S, and that doesn't result in the USAF launching bombing sorties on the towns were the murders happen to come from.

Julius: The people who started this are the settlers who keep stealing and abusing their Arab neighbors. I consider the killing of the 3 youths tragic. However already over 30 Palestinians have been butchered and many more wounded. Everyday in America people are killed. Everyone of them is a tragedy. We don't start wars over that. We consider the criminals who did the deed responsible, not their neighbors and relatives. Collective punishment is a terrible war crime which Israel commits everyday. Someday I hope the Israeli criminals who do it are held responsible before a war crimes commission.

The Israeli leadership deliberately faked out the parents of the kidnapped boys, knowing the facts, in order to create maximum shock value after raising the hopes the boys would be found alive.
Any government which does that kind of sadistic thing to its own people in order to justify their bombing of civilians is rotten and should be brought down. But oh, I guess nobody can do that, because they are "under attack", and attack they welcome for its ability to keep them in power. The current Israeli government is both bad for the Jews (what a bunch of thugs these people have over them) and bad for the whole human race.

But imagine a scenario in which the target is immigrants and the massacre of local ranch kids occurs in some border town, the government sits on its knowledge of the deaths while search parties fan out and hope flares up they might be held for ransom, but suddenly they are found decapitated, etc., and someone is trying to achieve unconstitutional powers beyond those assumed by previous executives…it can happen here. In fact it is a boon to anyone with a prior agenda which the law frowns upon. Almost like the killers and the power freaks are supporting each other.

Suppose one's own family bears the scars of a kidnapping in the past? You can hate the crime, condemn the criminals, but not make it a cause of war. Do you suppose everyone (like me) whose family was touched by such an event thinks that Israel is right to start a war about it? Do you avenge, prevent, dry up the sources of violence by going out and making more deaths? What good person in his dying breath would approve such an outcome —- where one set of evil men enable another set of evil men to spread more killing to innocent people? How is that ethical? Only if you think some people are more people than others, and entitled to treat the others like animals.

Everyone who responded to me so far has made some valid points. But part of the reason things keep escalating militarily is that the initial killers weren't just random thugs; they were affiliated with Hamas. And as long as rockets keep falling on major Israeli cities, reaching deeper than ever before, I assume the Israelis will demand some sort of military action be taken against Hamas. But of course this reaction shouldn't bring harm to ordinary Arabs in Gaza, which in fact it has done.

"Rabbi Yaakov Roger, a member of the Chief Rabbinate and Rabbi of ZAKA, the rabbi at the morgue of Forensic Medicine, said in a conversation with Behadrey Haredim that for the first time, since receiving the case where bodies lay in the warm weather, worms were not found on their bodies. "

the rabbi is celebrating it as a miracle and proof of the children's sainthood, but any rational person might come to wonder just when the bodies where found.

Perpetual military occupation as health of the State. Militarily conflicts as just the occasional but unavoidable outflows of this fundamentally flawed policy. Economical sanctions, blockades, massive spying, secret prisons, trade monopolies and diplomatic deception are a few others. Occupation can just as well be bone by proxy or "by military base".

All forms of such occupation are fundamentally an excess of violation, of symbolic violence, upsetting all sound principle in relation to an actual population. All other evil flows out from this and thus should be declared as a new fundamental reason of man.

"the two brothers implicated in the murder are members of a clan known to be a 'rogue' element in Hamas, having defied the wishes of the Hamas leadership on repeated occasions."

Then it seems that the smart thing for Israel to do would be to ask for Palestinian Authority, including Hamas, assistance in the investigation, arrest, and prosecution of those who murdered Gil-Ad Shaer, Naftali Frenkel, and Eyal Yifrach. And to do likewise in cases like the murder of Abu Khdeir. In other words, form an Israeli-PA-Hamas united front against "rogues" and terrorists on both sides.

"…why not use the murder to exert maximum political leverage on Washington, launch fresh attacks on the Palestinians, and score a few much-needed propaganda points?"
This leads me to darker thoughts..could the Israelis have set up the whole thing? It is not beyond them in the 1980's Mossad bombed Iraqi synagogues to "encourage" jews to go to Israel. Mossad's own motto is "Deception".
For further parallels look at the way Hitler used "incidents" such as the Reichstag fire, Danzig etc to justify German offensive actions.

Still, no proof is offered by the Israelis. They suppose that the lads imagined the Palestinians to be Israelis…The police get a call for help and hear gunshots but do nothing…They play 'Let's find Waldo' for awhile and then find the bodies…They round up 'the usual suspects.' …Not to mention that a Mossad chief predicted such an event–albeit involving three teenage girls–a few days before it magically happened…a trick used in the occult known as 'revelation of the method'…

It looks like another false flag…another bloody lie–like 9-11–to justify a course of action that the Zio-National Socialists wanted to take in the first place. Israel started this. It was started with the colonizing of Palestine or 'Rothschild Land' with a bunch of Euro-trash using Ameri-trash dollars and weapons. There is no historical basis for Palestine ever being part Khazaria. The entire enterprise is based on a fraud.

With all due respect to the writer of this article, which is quite incisive, I think something upon which we can ALL agree is that it was the RELIGIOUS 'authorities' who initiated this "cycle of violence" by the doctrines they teach; ALL the monotheistic religious 'authorities' without exception.

If enough people could focus on THAT–on the SPECIFIC people who initiated the "cycle of violence"–MAYBE there could be a way to resolve it by directly addressing their LIES; their denial and contradictions of the Revelations which both motivate an 'justify' the shedding of human blood.

This is the same way british authorities in Northern Ireland used warnings given to them by the Provisional IRA, then let the bombs go off, scoring political capital in persecuting irish nationalists in belfast and citizens with an Irish background within britain itself for short-term political gain

Julius,
Your heart may be right, but Netanyahou"s, Lieberman's, et al's are definitely not in the right place. These "super-nationalistic Israelis" are constantly scheming and promoting the destruction of the Palestinian people. And, yes, the ordinary Arabs are the specific targets – the unofficial goal is to drive the Arabs out of some future grandiose Israel. These "super-nationalistic Israelis" are absolute racists and believe they should be allowed to kill and seize land to create their dreamland. This attitude comes from obsessing over past mistreatment of Jews in which everyone else in the World is imagined to have been complicit and must surely pay, now and forever.

This is an excellent article, and to the point. Unfortunately, the Israeli narrative finds unquestioning support in many countries, particularly in Germany, where they're afaid to say 'boo' to Israel.

Your thesis could be extended to cover the entire Arab and Muslim world, as the Israeli government's 'style' is also mirrored in the actions of 'western' governments when seeking reasons to invade yet another country.

Your article is clear and precise in explaining continued Israeli aggression against Arabs.

by way of deception we shall wage war…. the kids thought it was an israeli, because it was an israeli. murder 3 kids..outrage galore, pummel and invade gaza. again. same BS was done with what, cast lead was it? two israeli soldiers kidnapped!? same story. again. and again, there is not one shred or iota of evidence presented by the zionists. fantastic.

Since rational people cannot accept a miracle in this instance (but I thank the Rabbi for spilling the beans inadvertently) I would ask you to harken back to an earlier incident in Israeli history in which some British soldiers were killed and kept in cold storage until the moment when they could be displayed in the street (I believe they were set out for the British to march by for maximum shock). These were troops that were missing and so the expectation was that they might be found, when certain people knew they were dead. You can look it up. The person who told me the story is a Sabra who left Israel and has lived in the US for years. He was my boss at the time, and the story had the ring of something from the American Revolution in which the British are tricked by Swamp Fox or something, one of the foundational tales. So the fact that this technique might have been used against their own —-

But then that would undermine the story about the phone call with gun shots of execution in it, wouldn't it? Or support it to say that they knew (from the origin of the call – I think they have that technical capability don't you?), and knew where to pick up the bodies in order to put them on ice until the moment of their choosing, much as in the dead British soldiers and the work of the Irgun.

i have thought for the last 40 years that palestinians were and still are morally and legally obligated to resist own occupation by any means whatever!
so were partisans of russia, ukraine, italy, ex-yugoslavia, greece, albania, norway…
but partisans had more than a sliver of a chance to defeat germans because russia, UK, and US was not only on their side, but were fighting germany.
but palestinians haven't got a sliver of a chance to stop land losses, let alone to win even one battle or defeat israel.
so, put aside religion for now; unite with impious palestinians and engage in massive passive resistance and hope americans who matter change their minds about israel.
if i were an impious palestinian i don't think i'd ever side with mullahs or quran. i would probably emigrate if quran would govern me and my family.

I see yours and I raise you. Who is to say those Israeli kids exist at all? It's so much better to use a fiction, because less messy. You may not agree with me, but I believe that many such hoaxes have been done in the US in recent years, in order to advance a political agenda. As evil as the outcome of attacking innocents, the initial killing of your own people does not have to happen for the narrative to be accepted and to work. Your people will die, but not at your own hand. I think there is a distinct possibility of this level of sophistication in powerful states who can control the narrative and pay off the alleged relatives.

Really, you don't. And how about "9/11 in which the US declared war on an abjectly poor country for acts of citizens of another country and who were resident in a third at the time. Think Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Germany and tell me there was no war as a result.

Monotheistic religion did not invent religious violence. Long before the appearance of the monotheism,there were religious violences among polytheist .
Romans wanted to screw the jewish religious symbols,buildings,and practices. They wanted conformity . Violence among different religious sects in India were quite common. Violence by Buddhist against Tamil ( not the 20 th century one but the violent clashes about 1000 yrs ago) and between different sects of Buddhism have been a historical fact and not an aberration.
Religion has often been abused by political forces in ancient times.

Notinmyname—it's been false-flag from the get-go! What better way for Netanyawhore to express his rage at the world because they embraced the Palestinian unity government? There's not only no proof that Palestinians executed the "teenagers"—there's no proof of their deaths whatsover!
Don't think Israel is capable? Hell, they killed their own PM in order to NOT achieve peace with the Palis!

No matter it's genesis, it has taken on a tragic Frankensteinian life of it's own….. We all need to take on a wait and see posture in this case…… Other than to declare the murder of innocent children to be the worst possibly crime in single numbers events…. Obviously the million we murdered in Iraq is a far worse crime than the murder of the children the Clintons, Janet Reno and Wesley Clark burnt to death that day in Waco Texas… A partial list:

“How can you label anything besides the kidnapping and multiple murders of the Israeli teens as the inciting incident?“

Many years ago, before I knew much about the situation in the Middle East, I saw the tail-end of a lecture given by some guy named Daniel Pipes. This was before the intertubes. I think it was on PBS.

In the question-and-answer section, which was curiously introduced with a warning to keep things ‘civil,’ someone asked about the issue of international aid to the Palestinians. Daniel Pipes objected to it on the grounds that it would, as I heard it, legitimize their status as victims.

At that point I knew that there was something evil going on, and that Daniel Pipes was an agent of it.

“Inciting incidents” are wherever you look for them. What is noteworthy is the bias with which the establishment media selects “inciting incidents” to bring to everyone else’s attention.

With all hell breaking loose around the area, Netanyahu wanted to be part of the warmonger's circle jerk. The psychopath is in his element. I'm shocked by the people who are cheering him and his minions on to further bloodshed. They are just as sick as he is. That "special relationship" with Israel is about as welcomed as a big rubbery tumor on Uncle Sam's nose.

Justin, I disagree most strongly with libertarianism, but I thank you so much for your support for/of the Palestinian people and the anti war movement. 'Never again' means something very different to the Israeli government and its supporters, and those of us who understand what those words truly mean (maybe they say it with their fingers crossed).

'religions' [means: mere and peculiar human thinkings–having little or nothing to do with an apodictic god] is too important to leave them solely to priestly classes.
obviously, god to be god [in our thinking or outside us] must accept all humans without any preconditions.
all 'religions' i know of limit the god in some ways; ie, one must also believe in bible, quran, give money to hierarchy, pray, prostate selves, face east, obey priests…

politics is too important to leave solely to politicians; ie, those who run for any office or journalists, invitees to major networks, radio, talk shows, generals, police echelons… in short, to people that matter.
this class of life would always have the wars for ignorance/poverty/drugs or against an 'alien' or disobedient nation, tribe, region, continent…..

When we see certain juntas at work, and I think Israel has one now. It is not earnest people about the business of governance, making life better for everyone under their protection, it is people with an agenda of repression and making events happen which give them war powers to destroy rivals and make new ones. It has a kind of medieval flavor, although we are constantly told they are a modern democracy, a shining beacon in the darkness of medieval Islamic states (a story which is largely false, although some are failing modern states). If anything, the behavior Israel is engaged in tends to attract revenge and to make it more likely that its neighbors will also regress under the influence of the religious fanatics: we don't usually have access to the photos of dead and mangled children destroyed by Israeli weapons. They do. It emboldens them, makes them feel their own violence is justified, makes them want to retaliate. But the cycle of violence is all some people want. I don't look at Netanyahu and see anyone who prefers a serene life. He is living on the adrenalin of this kind of thing and far from disgusting him, he derives a sense of mastery from it. He has all the charm of a mobster, and that bomb poster he showed at the UN kind of sums up his cartoonish persona. Unfortunately he isn't playing anything for laughs, ever.

Sorry Waldo, its your right to believe anything you want even a homeland for the jews. But i hope you don't mean in Palestine. Anybody who believes for a homeland for other people should volunteer his own.

Now we have another Dawkins minion repeating their not that young mantra "all is fault of religions". Hey, Dawkins et al work when it goes to science and philosophy, but when we talk about wars and imperialism they are useless… you hear me well… USELESS!!!!!!

Two new facts have come to light for me reading an article in the Israeli press (where apparently people are more even-handed in their thinking than in the US, where so many are brain-washed to believe the Israeli leadership no matter what): building on my prior observation that the Israeli's knew the boys were already dead while pretending to look for them, due to gunshots heard during an emergency call by one of the boys 1) apparently Israel wanted the public to believe it was an active hostage situation for a couple of weeks and they then re-arrested some Palestinians they had released who had once had something to do with prior hostage-taking (due to the supposition that Hamas had violated the terms of release with this latest taking); 2) the rumor or statement by officials that the Hamas guys who took the Israeli kids were disguised as religious Jews. Boy, we sure haven't heard that side of the story, have we? Only that the Israeli equivalent of NPR was playing on the car radio of those who picked up the hitchhikers. Are these details too sensitive to play in the American press? Too confusing? Too somehow likely to make people think this was a set-up? Does that mean the American version of the story is tailored to keep the American public from suspecting the Netanyahu government? http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4540482…

Our media in the US is even more fawning on whoever is in power in Israel than is the press in Israel. One can find lots of lively comments and accusations, not that someone is an outsider, but that he is a self-hating insider who will not follow in lock-step. Nevertheless, there are facts which our own press plays down, while the Israelis who are on the scene actually know what kind of suspicious stuff is coming out and cannot be as suppressed as it is by the time it gets to us, simply because it takes awhile to put together a coherent "speak as one voice" narrative for the Americans with our constant willingness to enable all sorts of reprehensible behavior. The Israelis who get things raw and in real time are asking the really embarrassing questions, as well they should because (unlike us) they actually must live with their history, and we can take up with something else down the road.

I personally feel that Jews have never been a people apart in what today is the United States, and they were here from the inception. It always seems to me that Israel is in that sense redundant – except for the fact that when they needed a refuge, we turned them away more than once. I am one of those people who feels that immigrants fleeing oppression should be given the benefit of the doubt. If WWIII starts in the Mideast, our own sins are a part of its origin.

If I were German, I'd be rioting in the streets. Present-day Germans have payed "Holocaust survivors" billions in "reparations"; but those who deserve actual reparation, the Native Americans and ancestors of African slaves, are the most marginalized members of U.S. society.

We have seen this cycle of action over and over. The Israel Government acts like heartless cold blooded predators engaged in killing and destroying. to “punish” The Jewish leaders promote symbols of God, but do not enforce the respectful behavior guidelines which God declared with the Ten Commandments. These are NOT suggestions. “Thou shall not kill” Is very clear. No exceptions were made. The predatory behavior of people thousands of years ago could not even comprehend “respect” for everybody, but to survive and protect people of the time, one was directed to kill. It is ironic that for the Jewish people leaders, who claim to be standing FOR the Ten Commandments, are the ones breaking them the most. It appears some Jewish leaders have severely lost their way. This makes the Middle East situation the most tragic misuse of the word of God. Heaven on earth will be developed in the next 50 years or sooner, but Heaven did not mean paradise. As in Heaven, everyone will treat everyone else with dignity and respect – especially the criminals (predators) who have lost their way to the animal desires (domination and control). We have methods now to restrain any person without killing them.
The first step in stopping deadly conflicts is to clearly show to the public that the leaders engaged aggressively are criminally insane. They may be nice and friendly and command “respect”, but they are the way they are – human animals whose souls are buried so deep down, that they know only to dominate and control others to survive.

Every day in Israel a rocket alarm goes off because a Hamas militant fires a rocket from Gaza Strip. That's the daily routine for millions of Israelis – taking chances of reaching the nearest bomb shelter or die a fiery death. It were the Arab neighbours who started the abuse, the attacks and the killings – in 1948. Because the hatred of Jews is imprinted in Islamic religious upbringing.

indeed, why has a racist, apartheid Palestinian Authority and Gaza not been already annexed by the rights-respecting, moral state of Israel. This would be beneficial for the Palestinians oppressed by their thug government.

You left out some important history, Richard (or maybe you weren't aware). The ARABs vowed to run the Jews into the sea and make the land run red with their blood…to drive THEM, Israelis, from the land that was LEGALLY given to them in 1948. So, you have it turned around, which isn't any surprise as it seems the whole world seems quick to blame everything on Israel. HAMAS kidnaps 3 Jewish teens? It was Israel's fault. A Palestinian teen is murdered by vigilantes in retaliation? The Israeli government plotted it. HAMAS shell Israel civilians? It's Israel's fault. Anything that happens, it's Israel's fault. It's sounding like the pre-WW2 days in Germany when the Jews were blamed for everything. Don't think it can't happen, again. It IS happening!

Do you know where the aid went that we gave to them? It went into the bank account of one Yassir Arafat. His widow is a multi-billionaire as a result, living a life of luxury in France. The poor Palestinian people didn't see one thin dime of that money. (Do some research on the amount given to each Arab country since, oh, say 1990.)

As for victims, that is their purpose…to gain sympathy from the world. If they can't leave the area, whose fault do you think it is? Arabs control over 90% of the land mass around Israel. Since Israel would be glad if they left, WHO is holding them there?

So, you see, Sam, you didn't look at the whole picture. Pipes knew the purpose of the "Palestinians" was to be "victims". It's been that way since the end of the war and the Arab attempt to drive the Jews out in 1948. Again, if you use your logic, you come to this conclusion when the "light" comes on when you ask yourself, "Who or what is holding them there?" It certainly isn't Israel.

Jews aren't in leadership. Zionists are, and they are secularists. Israel has the same situation as we have in the U.S…liberals who demand "separation of 'church' and state". Don't be fooled. Do your research. Look under Zionism on You-tube.

Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com, and a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute. He is a contributing editor at The American Conservative, and writes a monthly column for Chronicles. He is the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement [Center for Libertarian Studies, 1993; Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2000], and An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard [Prometheus Books, 2000].